at war was inevitable. The Germans have been preparing
it for forty years."

"Monsieur!"

"Monsieur!"

The two glared fixedly at each other for an instant; the one was very
red, the other extremely pale. Then they turned about and resumed
their places in each corner. The priest produced his breviary, the
soldiers finished a light repast composed of bread and cheese.

They were all three peasants, easily discernible from the way they
slowly chewed and swallowed, or caught up a crumb of cheese on the
point of their knives. They had sat silent and listened to the
outbursts without turning an eyelash. Then presently one of them
lifted his head and addressing his companions in a deep bass voice:

"Well," said he, "this makes almost two days now that we've been on the
way!"

"What have you got to kick about?" retaliated the other, shutting his
knife and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. "You're as well
off here as you were in the trenches of Bois Le Pretre, aren't you?"

The third one said nothing, but recommenced carving a cane which he had
abandoned for an instant, and which he was terminating with more
patience than art, though the accomplishment of his task seemed to give
him infinite pleasure.

As the commercial traveller had predicted, we were hours late and in
consequence missed our connection, but the platform of a station where
two lines meet, offers, under such circumstances, so diverse and
diverting a spectacle that we hardly regretted the delay. It is here
that any one interested in physiognomy can best study and judge the
masses, for it is as though the very texture from which France is woven
were laid bare before him. This spectacle is constantly changing,
constantly renewed, at times deeply moving. No face can be, or is,
indifferent, in these days and one no longer feels himself a detached
individual observer; one becomes an atom of the crowd, sharing the
anxiety of certain women that one knows are on their way to a hospital
and who half mad with impatience are clutching the fatal telegram in
one hand, while with the fingers of the other they thrum on one cheek
or nervously catch at a button or ornament of their clothing.

Or again one may participate in the hilarious joy of the men on
furlough, who having discovered the pump, stand stripped to the waist,
making a most meticulous toilet, all the while teasing a fat,
bald-headed chap to whom they continuously pass their pocket combs